Are more turntable motors better?

Dear friends: IMHO I think that to know if one TT motor is better than 2-3 TT motors in a TT design is totally useless in the practice for several reasons.

Mosin and Stanwal point out that that sole factor/characteristic in a TT design can't determine its quality performance because the TT design is not only a motor factor but a whole/series of adding factors/characteristics that along a high quality implementation/execution ( like the design on almost any audio device. ) define its final quality performance.

If we see of what we have out there on the TT overall subject we can attest that each TT designer has its own aproach ( valid or not, good or bad. ) to give his " best " answer to our needs, some ones achieve the targets or are near the targets better than others.

The differences in how each TT designer " see " the " right answer " are really wide: from one motor approach to several motors, from BD approach to DD one, from acrylic build material to a blend of build material elsewhere, from massive platter approach to low mass platter one, from suspended TT approach to non-suspension at all, from DC motors to ac ones, from air bearing design to magnetic one, from almost no-plinth to heavy plinths, etc, etc.

Now, if we ask to any one of those commercial TT designers the why's of their approaches they have , part by part , answers on it: answers that go with what they believe about, what they find on their design research, what they find on " day by day " TT work ( like any customer will hear it. ) in an audio " real " system, trying to choose the " best " trade-offs, obviously what they like and of course between a price range.

This is part of our reality that we can't make " disappear " on this thread/forum.

In the same way, if we ask to the one motor TT owner if he is satisfied ( Walker, Rockport, Galibier, VPI, ) the answer will be almost yes and if we make the same question to a three motor TT owner ( TW Acustic, Clearaudio, Transrotor, brinkman, ) he will say yes too. Even if we ask to this 3 motors TT owner if he likes more than the same model one motor his answer will be: yes I prefer the three motors approach.

This, like it or not/fortunately or not, is IMHO where we live, nothing is perfect. The good news is that we ( manufacturers, audio dealers and customers ) have a lot of " land " to improve in our future and this ( between other hings ) is a reason why we love our home audio music/sound reproduction " hobby ".

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

Raul,

I believe the test is whether the majority of listeners of a designer's product are genuinely moved by the passion of the music it produces. If they are, he has succeeded. If not, he has failed. At the end of the day, the number of motors, weight, etc., etc. are only talking points because the performance of the piece stands on its on merit. One cannot hide behind features when discerning ears report back to their owners.

Best,
Win

Yes, Dentoarm, I am desperately wanting to set up the HS-80 flywheel in the correct "mirror image" position. Initially I had to set it in the less-than-ideal position due to WAF issues. However, I think I've figured out a way to juggle all my components in my cabinet to allow the mirror image positioning and I will report back once this is completed.

Thanks!

Many thanks to all contributors to this thread. FWIW, I have just received a new Alpha power supply, two motors, and a variety of belts for my Final Tool from Otto, the new proprietor of Acoustic Signature. After I install a Triplanar VII and ZYX Universe on it, I will do some serious 1 vs. 2 motor comparisons, and report back. By the way, I'm going to start a new thread about this, but I can't say enough good about Otto - I had given up hope of ever getting my Final Tool working again, but Otto has really come through.

will do some serious 1 vs. 2 motor comparisons, and report back.

Unfortunately, it will show nothing new, because you don't know, how good these motors really are.
That's why multi motors from same manufacturer always sound different to single motor. When they have flaws, it is not so obvious. They compensate each other.

A real comparison would be, to use a real good motor as comparison (for example from Micro Seiki..)
In Germany I know a few who replaced- for example - the Raven motors, no matter how much (1 or 2...) with really high quality industrial motors and they told me, THAT is an real improvement....